And this Buche Planete Cherry = too chocolatey. I feel like Goldilocks and the three buches..

The mystery of Angelina's Autriche buche - an homage to their original confiseur Antoine Rumpelmayer(Austrian). Filled with flavors of the Christmas market - pains d'epice plus honey decorated with vermicelles of creme de marron ( a wink at the specialty of the maison - the Monte Blanc.

Rumpelmayer was more than the first confiseur, he founded Angelina's, named after his daughter in law. Angelina's one of several salons de thé he opened in France and Germany, there was even one in New York.

Thank you for the reminder. When I was very little my Grandmere used to take me to the NYC Rumplemayer's. It seemed a fairy land in there but what I remember now is her delight as an ice cream a pastry confection was set before her and her beautiful parfum. Fleurs de Rocailles. The original.

I love Paris Breakfasts. Am so pleased to have unexpectedly found it. For a Catalan take on les buches Foix de Sarria in my other hometown Barcelona creates fantasies with gnomes and mushrooms and, yes, little families of baby hedgehogs--all out of pastry, cream and exquisitely carved candied fruits and chocolate. Bon Any!

So happy you are experiencing your first New Year in Paris! I hope it is all you wish it to be! I loved reading about it, as always it makes me feel as if I were right there (where I would love to be!)... Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Carol! I'd have chosen that one, too. Looks good. I used to make a buche noel, but I'd make it look like a log with a cut off side branch thing, too--it was a lot of work, but fun to make and it did taste good. I'd put meringue mushrooms to the side. I forgot all about making those things!

I LOVE your 1st 2013 page!! About the images in your photos: if all that sweetness translates into happiness, then we are all going to have a très très très belle année filled with bonheur!!! Did you see the feu d'artifice in Paris last night? I saw them from all over the world on TV5 today.

For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer's men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning--fresh as if issued to children on a beach.

Isn't it amazing how people like Rumpelmayer managed to be so successful in various countries? We always think that nowadays we are mobile, but our forefathers were not idle either.

Carol: You are killing me with the marron buche--I remember one Christmas getting marron glace covered in chocolate at Pierre Herme but they didn';t have them the next year---been craving them ever since. Had the Payard buche of carmel salted butter buche this year--was fabulous. Waiting for your Three Kings Cake and the Feve report!! Bonne Anee LuLu

Happy New Year to you too Carol, how lovely to spend a New Year in Paris (still on the wishlist for me). I must say I would have picked Angelina's buche de noel. A buche de noel is still on the wishlist for me too.